This text is not written from a beam cozy from Vila Madalena, or others point hipsters from São Paulo, with piercing nose, some, hair dyed blue, others, and many awake for liberal trends breaking out around the world, all of them. No: there are no artists, students, professors, sociologists or even other journalists near this computer.
The author of these lines can be accused of many things: but he does not live in a bubble. Or rather: lives in the other bubble.
Nearly 400 km north of Vila Madalena is Ribeirão Preto, its highlights being the Agrishow, the largest agricultural show in Latin America, and the nearby Festa do Peão de Boiadeiro de Barretos, the largest event of its kind outside the US, with infrastructure to host the best rodeo in the country and awesome shows from the hinterland.
With almost 700,000 inhabitants, most of them descendants of Italians who came to work on coffee and sugar cane plantations and became rich in a few generations, it is one of the richest places in Brazil. And even more bolsonaristas.
Here Bolsonaro stands for good, order, safety, the family; Lula the evil, the bandits, drugs, abortion. And these ideas are consolidated, rooted, ingrained.
However, a newly arrived foreigner is confronted by the… apartheidveiled, between rich and poor, so common in Brazil. And if he wants to maintain a standard of living close to what he was used to in his country of origin, he must live with and frequent visits to the (very) wealthy “elites”.
And living with the species, as with most Brazilians, is delightful – kindness, joy, hospitality and tender barbecues, with cold beer in the Saturday – as long as it is ensured that the conversation is – never – sent to politics.
Because when you hear, between a sausage and an underheated diaper, the first “good bandit is a dead bandit”, it’s already wrong. Then follows the traditional “in this country there is no hunger, only those who are bums are hungry,” said loud and clear, so loud that you can almost hear it in the favela right next to the luxury condominium.
As Draft beer already finally overthrown comes the quintessential “Lula cut off his little finger on purpose to retire” followed by the traditional “Myth is correct, this people really need a dictatorship”.
With the picanha getting stuck in the esophagus and the Skol churning in the stomach, it’s time to take refuge from the Saturday reactionary at home – but without making the mistake of looking at the social networks of diners, where they now, animated by alcohol, guarantee that, if Lula wins, the leaders of the largest criminal organizations in the country will be entitled to ministry.
On Monday, awakening is to the sound of “Deus, Pátria, Família”, coming from the loudspeaker of a car crossing the avenue, and at night the columnist’s daughters report that one of the friends was wearing high socks with Bolsonaro’s face . what else, influencer at age 11, she published a video honoring Mito and calling her friends one of the rare classmates who deviates from “the girl with nine fingers” because Lula’s amputated little finger is a strange bolsonarista fetish.
The next column will be written from here, 400 km from Vila Madalena, but don’t be surprised if in the meantime the author dyes his hair blue or piercing nose in an act of sheer desperation.
Journalist, correspondent in Sao Paulo
Source: DN
